


Sokka’s New York Adventure Vlog

by ohlooksomethingshiny



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), M/M, just an excuse for me to write about new york, oh my god they were roommates, roommates to vloggers to lovers, tomfoolery in the city
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29584362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlooksomethingshiny/pseuds/ohlooksomethingshiny
Summary: When Sokka moved to New York City he started a vlog.He didn’t mean to record himself falling in love with his roommate, that part just sort of happened...
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	Sokka’s New York Adventure Vlog

When Sokka moved to New York City he started a vlog. 

It was mostly so he could show his family all his adventures in the city. He knew Katara would be bugging him for details constantly, and wondering if he was now living in his own personal episode of Gossip Girl. His dads would be worried about him and need proof that the city was treating him okay and his Grandmother would just want to know what her only grandson was up to. And he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t also a little bit to show off for all the people he had gone to high school with. 

So he decided that he would utilize the video editing skills he picked up for projects in middle school and start a vlog on youtube. Partially because he wasn’t sure that his Gran Gran knew how to use any of the other video sharing websites he knew of. But she could certainly click a youtube link. He wasn’t trying to go viral or anything—and he certainly wouldn’t—this was for fun and for his family (And maybe a few high school assholes that he’d like to show how awesome his life is, sue him.) 

A few months after graduating college with a degree in Education, he found a job as a middle school science teacher, packed up what he wanted from his dorm room and his childhood bedroom in two big ass suitcases and a few boxes and bought a one way ticket to New York. He found an apartment and roommate easily enough online, a guy named Zuko who had been living alone in a two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for the past few months but was now looking for someone to help with rent. 

Zuko had seemed normal enough when they had video called, but you couldn’t ever be sure with people advertising rooms online. But the apartment had so many windows, he’d have his own room and bathroom, and it was super close to the subway he’d have to take to work. 

Honestly, for his own bathroom, a shorter commute, and natural light, Sokka would take a 5th floor walk-up and a roommate that could (potentially) be an axe murderer. At least if he was murdered he would have a super nice ass from all the stairs and be killed in New York City instead of somewhere less fun. Win-Win, Really. 

What was not a win, however was the almost 10 hour flight from Alaska to New York. His dad, step-dad and sister all came to drop him off at the airport since the move to New York would be the farthest he had ever been from them. Sokka was excited to do his own thing but he knew he’d miss his family. Hugs were given, tears were shed, promises to call made, and then he was off. 

When he finally lands in New York, a long plane ride and a four hour time difference later, Sokka is ready for a nap. Instead, he calls his dad to let him know that he landed safely and texts his new roommate, to let him know he is on the way. Zuko said he would leave work during his lunch break to let Sokka into the apartment and show him around a bit. They had definitely talked about it, but Sokka has no idea what Zuko’s job even is. And at this point he doesn’t really want to ask again. He knows that he works for his father’s company doing something that sounded important and evidently paid well enough for him to be able to afford to rent a two bedroom apartment by himself. He figures it’ll probably come up again later. 

Sokka grabs his luggage from the spinny thing that used to fascinate him when he was a kid and lugs his multitude of bags to the parking garage in LaGuardia airport where the Ubers pick up. He orders himself a ride to his new address and hops in. Driving through Queens and then Brooklyn, his forehead may as well be glued to the window as he checks out all the new sights. 

When he arrives at his building, he finds Zuko waiting for him downstairs. 

“Hey, good to finally meet you!” Sokka says, “I’d shake your hand or something but I’ve got too many bags.”

“Good to meet you too,” Zuko responds, “I can help with some of those.” Sokka didn’t have to be told twice. He gleefully hands over one of his suitcases, glad to avoid having to carry it up the stairs. 

“So, how was your flight?” Zuko asks around floor 2. 

“It was fine, super long though.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” 

They walk the rest of the way up in a sort of awkward silence. Sokka’s a little ashamed to admit how out of breath he is when they finally make it to the top. “Wow, please tell me that gets easier the longer you live here.”

“Uh, not really,” Zuko offers, “I’ve been here three months and I’ve just gotten better at hiding how winded I am.” He turns away from Sokka and gets busy opening up the door. “Home Sweet Home,” he says as he swings the door open. 

The first thing Sokka notices is how small the entrance is. The door opens into a small hallway and the door can barely open without striking the wall on the other side. New York City, baby! 

Zuko leads the way to the room that will be Sokka’s and they drop his suitcases in there. Looking around, it looks like two of the boxes of stuff he shipped have arrived as well as the furniture he ordered from Ikea. And Zuko was kind enough to bring them up all the stairs and leave them in his room. Not that it takes much to impress him, but Sokka decides right then and there that Zuko’s not so bad. 

A quick tour later (not that there’s all that much apartment to see.) and Zuko’s handing Sokka his keys and giving him the wifi password before he’s rushing out the door to go back to work with the promise to show Sokka around the neighborhood when he gets back. 

With Zuko gone, Sokka decides to film the apartment tour portion of his first vlog. He knows his family will want to see the place so he gets out his phone to start. He decides to start out on the sidewalk in front of the building so that he could give his viewers the whole experience. He first uses the front camera so he can make a little introduction. “Hello to all the folks back home, It’s me, Sokka and I have arrived in the Big Apple. Welcome to my apartment. Allow me to give you a tour.” He stops that video and flips the camera around to film his surroundings.

He starts out filming the door. “Here is the outside! The street is very nice,” he says, spinning around to show the street. “And here is the front door. I type a code into this little key pad and it lets me in. But I won’t show you that.” He types in the code and walks inside. “Here’s our little entrance area where the mail comes, and here are the millions of stairs.” He starts climbing, filming as he goes. He plans to speed this part up when he actually puts the video together so that his family can see the sheer number of stairs but they don’t get bored. (And also so they don’t hear his heavy breathing by the end.)

When Sokka gets to the top he has to catch his breath for a second but he doesn’t record that part. He flips back to the front camera so that he can be in the next video. “This is the door to our apartment. It has this 5 on it so you know it is the 5th floor.” He gestures to the number on the door. “It’s also a great reminder of the number of flights of stairs you just had to climb! Okay, let’s go inside!” He stops that video and starts another, flipping to the back camera.

Sokka pulls his keys from his pocket and records himself unlocking the door. “Ah, here we go, home sweet home. Here is the hallway. It is a very skinny hallway. If you go this way, it leads you to the living room and kitchen.” He goes the way that he mentioned. “Here is the couch, the table, the TV and these lovely shelves, and some plants, all of which do not belong to me. And here is the pantry which is mostly empty on my half because I haven’t been to the store and grocery shopping here scares me a little but that’s okay because Zuko said he would go with me later. Here’s the kitchen, which looks like a regular kitchen.” He shows all the things as he narrates and then begins to back down the hall towards his room and bathroom. 

“Here’s Zuko’s room and bathroom and now the moment we have all been waiting for, here is my barren bathroom and also my mostly empty room.” He does a slow spin with his phone to show off each of the two rooms. “Now I’m off to build some ikea furniture so that I have somewhere to sleep and also unpack my clothes so come back later to see what my room looks like!” 

Not willing to make himself a liar, he actually does try to put together the furniture. The bed is pretty easy and he gets that all set up and ready to sleep on but everything else is proving to be a pain in the ass. He’s trying to build his dresser when Zuko makes a reappearance. Sokka’s a bit of a mess when he’s working so some of his parts have spilled out into the hall. Zuko has to step over some spare screws and the one drawer Sokka has managed to successfully assemble himself. He disappears for a few minutes and Sokka’s worried that he’s scared him  
off already but then he appears in the doorway in sweatpants and a t-shirt. 

“Want some help with that?” Zuko offers and Sokka’s initial opinion of him being not so bad quickly changes to thinking that this guy might just become his new best friend. 

He manages to keep his cool and avoid any premature declarations of friendship and simply says, “Yeah that’d be great!” 

Zuko joins him in his room and sits on the floor on the other side of a big piece of whatever material Ikea furniture is made of. He picks up the instructions and looks at them for a moment before he’s interrupted by Sokka. “Wait! Do you want to be in my vlog?”

His eyebrow furrows. “Your what?”

“My vlog! My family told me to keep them up to date on what I’m up to so I decided to start one on YouTube so they could see what I’m doing.”

“Uh, okay… sure, I guess.” 

Sokka pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts to record himself. “Hello again. Turns out Ikea furniture is more difficult than I imagined. So I have enlisted help. Say hello to Zuko!” Zuko gives an awkward little wave from behind Sokka. “Hopefully together we can figure this out. Teamwork makes the dream work and whatnot.” 

Sokka set his phone on the newly constructed bed, recording a time lapse video as they work. Somehow, they manage to put two more drawers together and then realize they’ve made them upside down and have to take them apart and start over. Once they finally got the drawers done correctly, Sokka accidentally used screws where he was supposed to use the little wooden pegs on the main part of the dresser. Then Zuko manages to smash his thumb with the hammer. He swears and Sokka laughs which just makes him swear more. Ah bonding over the struggle of building furniture. 

Eventually, they do manage to complete the dresser. It probably won’t win any awards for construction, but it stands and the drawers go in and out like they’re supposed to. Sokka’s pretty proud of it. He turns to Zuko and gives him a high five for their effort. 

“Do you want to go to the grocery store now?” Zuko asks. “If I have to look at more instructions that don’t make any sense I might actually scream.”

“Yeah, sounds good! I could use some snacks. I’m starting to get hungry.”

“Okay, great. Grab your shoes and we can go. It’s just right down the street.” Zuko says, starting to head to his own room. He peeks his head back in to ask, “Do you have reusable bags?”

Sokka looks around at the boxes and suitcases containing all his stuff. “Uh… somewhere? I think?” He kneels down to open the nearest box to look inside. 

“You can borrow some of mine,” Zuko offers, tossing a couple of tote bags to him. Sokka pulls on his shoes and they head out the door. 

Walking down the street, Zuko becomes an unofficial tour guide, pointing out restaurants that are good, the subway station, the liquor store, the laundromat, and the Dunkin’ Donuts he sometimes goes to before work, all before they reach the grocery store. 

Sokka’s impressed with how many things there are so close together. Other than work, he could live a whole life without even leaving their street, never even exploring the rest of the city. This absolutely blows his mind. 

The grocery store also blows his mind. First of all, it’s tiny. The aisles are hardly wide enough to walk down with his handheld basket without knocking things off the shelves. Sokka films a little bit inside the store, but doesn’t narrate or anything. He’s very much trying to not get weird looks by vlogging in public. 

He and Zuko split up to grab the things they need. Sokka didn’t exactly make a list so he knows he’ll probably come home with a bunch of random stuff. He figures he can come back sometime later in the week. He’s still got a little bit of summer left before the school year starts and he’s expected to be in charge of children. A perfect amount of time to get his life together and turn himself into a functional adult in a new city. 

The first thing this functional adult puts in his basket is a box of pop tarts. The perfect adult snack. He also grabs some jerky, pasta, eggs, cheetos, frozen chicken nuggets and a bag of oranges just to be healthy. He’ll figure out what to get for a more balanced diet the next time he goes shopping. 

He pays for his things and finds Zuko waiting at the front, doing something on his phone. He looks up when Sokka approaches and says, “Ready?” 

Sokka nods and they start the journey back to their apartment. It’s started to get dark in the time that they were inside and that makes him want to go home and crawl into bed. 

“So how was your first New York Grocery Store experience?” Zuko asks, “Everything you dreamed?”

“Oh yeah,” Sokka says, “It was exactly as small and cramped as I imagined. And I didn’t make a list before so I just got some random stuff.”

Zuko considers that and says, “Well if you didn’t get a whole lot of stuff yet we could order some takeout for dinner tonight? There’s a pretty good Thai restaurant that delivers.”

Being able to go home and not have to cook himself  
some food sounds really great. Sokka still has to at least start unpacking some of his stuff tonight so letting somebody bring dinner to him sounds really nice. “Sounds like a plan,” Sokka says. 

When they reach their apartment, they drag their purchases up all the stairs and then head to the kitchen to put them away. When he goes to put his eggs away, he notices that the fridge is pretty empty minus a few takeout containers and Zuko’s own carton of eggs. It looked like ordering dinner was a common occurrence for Zuko. 

Zuko must have noticed Sokka looking because he looks at him sheepishly. “I promise I don’t order takeout all the time.”

“Hey man, no judgement from me. Takeout is the best.”

“Yeah,” Zuko says, “let’s go ahead and order some.” He pulls up the app on his phone and taps the screen a few times, putting in his order, before handing it to Sokka to add what he wants. He picks some fried rice and hands Zuko his phone back. Sokka then heads to his room to get a little bit of unpacking done before the food gets there. 

He locates his sheets and other bed things and starts getting that ready to sleep in. Then he decides to start tackling the clothes. He realizes very quickly that he doesn’t actually have any hangers to put anything in the closet so he makes a mental note to find some hangers tomorrow and focuses on the clothes he wants to put in the dresser. He doesn’t get all that much done before their bell rings and Zuko’s buzzing the guy with the food in. 

They sit at the table and go to dig in. Sokka stops after a few bites and records his last video for the night. “Roommate dinner with Zuko!” He says as he films their food and also Zuko who waves at the camera much like he had done earlier. 

They eat mostly in silence after that, but it isn’t really awkward. They just eat. When he finishes, Sokka decides to retreat to his room for the rest of the night. He tells Zuko goodnight and sits down on his bed. Then he quickly throws together his first vlog. He includes the apartment tour, furniture building and the store as well as a few other short videos he’d taken here and there. He adds some music over the quieter videos (including the theme song from Bob the Builder over the furniture time lapse because he thinks it’ll be funny.) 

He publishes it to youtube and sends the link to his dad, sister, and grandmother. A few minutes later, Katara calls him. She asks how his first day was, how he likes his new roommate and the apartment and New York in general. 

“I miss you already,” She says. “Dad and Bato have been all mopey since you left. Something about how they’re getting old and becoming empty nesters.”

“Yeah, that sounds like them. Tell them both that I miss them. And I miss you too,” Sokka replies, “You’ll have to come visit sometime!” 

They talk a little more about nothing important and then say their typical goodbyes and hang up. Sokka looks and sees his dad has texted him, letting him know he and Bato loved the video and that they love and miss him. 

He does a little more unpacking and then decides to get in bed and make the rest of the unpacking tomorrow’s problem. 

With day one in New York complete, Sokka thinks he’s going to like living there.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :)
> 
> My tumblr is [HERE](https://ohlook-somethingshiny.tumblr.com/) if you want to come say hi!


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